> If someone takes your recommended draft and then records in a ledger somewhere which draft revision(s) you were working with to prepare your draft/proposed changes, and they store copies of all these drafts, then that's version control
I’m a private citizen asking friends for their thoughts. One of them fixed the grammar in something wrote years ago. Would those edits need to be copied to a public ledger and identified?
Let’s go local. I’m right now working on getting Flock Safety out of my community. Part of that involves co-ordinating with members of vulnerable communities. I’m sure as hell not getting all of them to sign their names to a draft measure. Yet every single one of them have added value to the discussion and project.
This is the reality of negotiation, coalition building and reconciliation. Some of it is untraced for convenience. Some of it is hidden for corrupt purposes. And some of it is secret to give room for honesty and grace.
I have no doubt we could force lawmakers to use version control. I’m sure we could prosecute private citizens and NGOs for not using the sanctioned reporting system. I don’t see that being a step forward. And I don’t see it hampering to any degree the powerful and connected.
(You’ve argued this well, by the way, and I think my position has shifted from it’s impossible to it’s impossible without compromising what makes democracy work.)
> I’m a private citizen asking friends for their thoughts. One of them fixed the grammar in something wrote years ago. Would those edits need to be copied to a public ledger and identified?
It wouldn't hurt, but it also wouldn't be necessary.
> I’m sure as hell not getting all of them to sign their names to a draft measure. Yet every single one of them have added value to the discussion and project.
"Added value" is not the same as being the author of a draft that gets merged (in whole or in part, and with or without edits by the person who's integrating it).
> I’m sure we could prosecute private citizens and NGOs for not using the sanctioned reporting system.
I don't know what that means. As I said before, if you send your draft (or just the parts that you wish to "patch", i.e. a suggested change) to a public official (no matter what form, e.g. an email, even) who then chooses to integrate your suggestion, and they record both the provenance of the revision and what precisely is being revised, then that would satisfy the conditions of what constitutes version control.
> You’ve argued this well
I don't think so. I see this subthread as being tedious and unnecessary, and there's nothing particularly insightful in the things I've written here. It should have ended with the first commenter who explained that nothing about any of this is incompatible with version control, but it sounds—not just based on the remarks here, but similarly timed comments elsewhere—that you still don't grok what that really means.
> "Added value" is not the same as being the author of a draft that gets merged
Merged into what? There is no master draft. Just a bunch of drafts being circulated. I have no idea at what point my comments are submitted into a copy that winds up on the floor for a vote.
More to the point, the author of the draft may have nothing to do with my edits. If we’re skipping that, the entire exercise is performative.
> it sounds—not just based on the remarks here, but similarly timed comments elsewhere—that you still don't grok what that really means
How much language have you drafted that wound up in state or federal law?
> Merged into what? There is no master draft. Just a bunch of drafts being circulated. I have no idea at what point my comments are submitted into a copy that winds up on the floor for a vote.
Give this another think-through.
> How much language have you drafted that wound up in state or federal law?¶ This confident naïveté is part of the problem.
Mr. Crisscross: There is no amount of experience or lack thereof that can invalidate basic mathematical truths that are known about graph theory.
> More to the point, the author of the draft may have nothing to do with my edits. If we’re skipping that, the entire exercise is performative.
I’m a private citizen asking friends for their thoughts. One of them fixed the grammar in something wrote years ago. Would those edits need to be copied to a public ledger and identified?
Let’s go local. I’m right now working on getting Flock Safety out of my community. Part of that involves co-ordinating with members of vulnerable communities. I’m sure as hell not getting all of them to sign their names to a draft measure. Yet every single one of them have added value to the discussion and project.
This is the reality of negotiation, coalition building and reconciliation. Some of it is untraced for convenience. Some of it is hidden for corrupt purposes. And some of it is secret to give room for honesty and grace.
I have no doubt we could force lawmakers to use version control. I’m sure we could prosecute private citizens and NGOs for not using the sanctioned reporting system. I don’t see that being a step forward. And I don’t see it hampering to any degree the powerful and connected.
(You’ve argued this well, by the way, and I think my position has shifted from it’s impossible to it’s impossible without compromising what makes democracy work.)